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Knoedler/Rosales Fakes Still Lurking on the Market

January 2, 2014 by Marion Maneker

 

Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn

The Art Newspaper reminds us that at least one of the Rosales works is still in the wild and two are in museum storage:

At least one institutional buyer still has forged works. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, has two works in storage: a fake Franz Kline, bought for $475,000 in 1999, and a fake Richard Diebenkorn, bought for $110,000 in 1997, a spokeswoman says.

Other works were unwittingly sent back onto the market. “I unloaded my victimhood,” says Bernard Kruger, who was Freedman’s doctor when he bought a work allegedly by Diebenkorn from the gallery for $95,000 in 1994. He later sold the work and does not know who has it now, he says.

Fakes still on the market as Knoedler victims sue (The Art Newspaper)

The Knoedler Forger Defends Himself

December 19, 2013 by Marion Maneker

Pei-Chan QianBusinessWeek tracked down Pei-Shan Qian in China to hear his side of the story on Glafira Rosales’s fake works. He maintains he had no knowledge that the works would be passed off as fakes:

“The FBI said they were done by the hands of a genius,” he said on a recent morning in Shanghai. “Well, that’s me. How strange it feels!”

In his first interview for the Western media, Qian, 73, insisted on his innocence, outlining in his soft Shanghai accent a classic immigrant’s tale that took an odd twist. He made artworks that resembled those of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and others, yes, but he never intended to pass them off as those artists’ work for profit. Sitting in a gallery of his own works, Qian said: “I made a knife to cut fruit. But if others use it to kill, blaming me is unfair.” […]

The scandal in New York is “a very big misunderstanding,” Qian said, incredulous that anyone would have considered his imitations to be the genuine work of masters. “Nobody would take them seriously,” he said. “It’s impossible to imitate them—from the papers to the paints to the composition. It’s impossible to do it exactly.” […]

As for Qian, friends support his argument that he was also duped. “He had no idea the business side of the art world is not that clean,” said Shanghai-based artist Ann Yen, who has known Qian since 1982. “He just keeps painting. Doesn’t matter if the earth is shattered or sky darkened. He cannot live without painting.”

Leaving the gallery in Shanghai, Qian said he has lost sleep over the forgery case. He’s getting famous in the wrong way, he said. “I have suffered for what I love.”

The Other Side of an $80 Million Art Fraud: A Master Forger Speaks  (BusinessWeek)

John Howard’s Amended Knoedler Complaint

November 5, 2013 by Marion Maneker

From our friends at Galleristny.com

2013-10-24 Howard v. Knoedler, et al. Amended Complaint.pdf

Who Will Take Responsibility for Glafira Rosales’s Fakes?

October 1, 2013 by Marion Maneker

credit: JEFFERSON SIEGEL
credit: JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Michael Schnayerson asks the pertinent question in Vanity Fair now that Glafira Rosales has not implicated Ann Freedman or the Knoedler Gallery itself in the forgeries both sold. Pierre LaGrange has reached a settlement:

The other buyers, among them Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, and John D. Howard, C.E.O. of Irving Place Capital, are not so fortunate, at least not yet. Knoedler hasn’t settled with them. Now that Rosales has admitted her guilt, the buyers may have a harder time arguing for restitution from Knoedler and Freedman, who were, arguably, fellow victims. Which means the buyers may turn their lonely eyes to . . . Michael Hammer.

Hammer, grandson of billionaire industrialist Armand Hammer, is the chairman of the Armand Hammer Foundation, which holds a controlling interest in Knoedler. John Howard says he’ll keep on with his suit “to the death” and adds: “Hammer talked with Ann every day. He knew everything that was going on. She sold a painting for $4 million to me, [having] bought that painting for $300,000–400,000. . . . How could she buy these paintings for 10 percent of their value?”

All five plaintiffs name Hammer as a party to their suits. Hammer’s lawyers take exception to that. In moving to dismiss De Sole’s suit, they note that it “does not allege that Mr. Hammer knew that any painting sold by Knoedler was counterfeit. . . . or that he knew or should have known that the allegedly forged paintings had been obtained from defendant Glafira Rosales, or that he even had heard of Ms. Rosales.”

One source close to the story thinks Hammer took $10–20 million as his share from the sale of the paintings. Whether he knew about Rosales or not, shouldn’t he at least give that money back? Howard asks. And perhaps kick in, from his personal fortune, the rest of what those buyers paid? “If nothing else, if he’s an innocent, return the money!” declares Howard.

What Does Glafira Rosales’s Guilty Plea in the Knoedler-Gallery Forgery Case Mean for Ann Freedman and the Rest of the Players? (Vanity Fair)

Jerry Saltz Doubles Down on Due Diligence Doubt

September 23, 2013 by Marion Maneker

Jerry Saltz

New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz must not have gotten the memo that Ann Freedman has sued Marco Grassi for defamation because Grassi cast doubt in New York Magazine on Freedman’s due diligence on the Glafira Rosales fakes she sold. Saltz was interviewed on NPR this weekend by Scott Simon and makes similar comments about Freedman:

SIMON: So shouldn’t sophisticated Manhattan galleries know the difference between fake Jackson Pollack and real?

SALTZ: Well, boom, you usually would expect a gallery, in particular the oldest, most reputable gallery in the United States, Knoedler, would kind of do due diligence when they heard a story as cockamamie, far-fetched, and unbelievable as this. […]

SIMON: Well, these had to be pretty convincing in appearance, right?

SALTZ: Well, look, I can imagine that faking a Pollack by somebody that’s pretty good at it could do it. Have I been fooled? Absolutely. Do I know? No. Look, if you are an art dealer at Knoedler, you have an ethical failure of will, intentional or sociopathically unintentional, to research those paintings before you dare try to pass them off as real, let alone start selling and profiting from them.

Art Dealer Pleads Guilty to Selling Fraudulent Paintings (NPR)

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